


Triage

by akathecentimetre



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some wounds require far more than just bandages; Or, in which musketeers are reckless, Athos interferes in affairs he hoped to avoid, and forgiveness is a long time coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Triage

**Author's Note:**

> As with my first BBC/2014 fic, [Des Petites Morts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1160359), this is set in the world of the show but incorporates a lot of ideas from the book and previous fandom stuff I've done. Just an idea that wouldn't let go - I hope you enjoy it! Melodrama ahoy...

There are ample, and indeed some would say far too many, opportunities in a musketeer’s life to learn the noble art of bandaging. In wartime the value of such a skill is self-evident, but even on the normal days, in the rabbit-warren streets of Paris, Aramis uses it often. He, Athos and Porthos each have their own ways of tying knots in coarse cloth around cuts, punctures and bruises; each trusts a plethora of different doctors, some more guilty of quackery than others. 

Porthos’s hands are rough and quick, and unfailing in their accuracy; Athos’s you would hardly notice moving as they wrapped the future scar on your wrist. Aramis knows his touch is subconsciously long and careful – a remnant of his womanizing, perhaps, though he also likes to think of it as personifying the respect and love he has for his brothers-in-arms, whom he will take care of unto death. Now they are each teaching the art of triage to d’Artagnan, who has already in the short few weeks they have known him proven himself more than apt at attracting injuries which need treatment. The boy’s attention wanders easily, but they will make a surgeon of him yet. 

These days, when he is feeling philosophical, Aramis compares the bandages of the temporal world to those of the spiritual. Since he first entered adulthood, he has made an art form out of the stolen encounter with the women he loves; but even those women were, in the end, able to give him the balm of a whole night. Now he must make do with a single look, a single second, a fleeting brush of hands, to salve his soul. Anne might have been indiscreet in her first favours, but she is nothing but not careful, and respectful of the institution her husband represents, if not his person. He would never have dreamt, just a few months ago, that he would find himself starving for a momentary glance, one dash of tonic for his lovesickness every week if he is lucky.

In this matter Aramis is, paradoxically enough, jealous of Athos, who is the one trusted to stand at the Queen’s side, and look upon her countenance whenever he represents the Musketeers at the palace with Treville. Since that first moment of feeling her against him (which had not been planned nor sought, and so did not mean anything, not at the time) it is not Aramis who has touched her waist, her shoulders, has both the temerity and permission to shield her from bombs and bullets without suspicion, to _manhandle_ her. What Aramis would not give, he sometimes wonders, to possess that trust, that air of nobility and competence which, for Athos, flings open wide every door before him. 

Porthos is jealous of neither of them. If it were any other woman, he would be hot in pursuit and reveling in the competition, but not this time. Aramis can see the wariness in his eyes, and in Athos’s too, can practically smell their disapproval at every oblique reference to his goddess. Sometimes he cares, worries about what they must think of him; most often, he does not.

*

They are sent to La Rochelle in late August of 1627, there to hunt down Protestants and maintain the field of battle while the king’s forces build their slowly-encroaching wall around the city to keep the heretics in. Despite his seminary training Aramis has little interest in the theological reasons for the war, and nor do his friends; that Englishmen, Scotsmen and mercenaries of all nations are attempting to invade French soil, however, is a simple enough reason to fight. And so they fight. d’Artagnan quickly proves himself to be almost indecently suited to the sights and sounds of war, and a quick tactical thinker when the troop of blue-clad Musketeers has to retreat or advance in a hurry to make sense of the confusion around the shoreline of the city and the Ile-de-Ré.

The king and queen arrive in the main Royalist encampment on September 2nd, come to see the progress of the siege. The king is nervous at the sound of the cannons; Richelieu, at his side, is visibly seething with excitement, and rage that any Protestant, let alone a whole city of them, should dare oppose him. He is here for the hunt. 

And Aramis is there to watch her from the crowd, return Anne’s smiles. He wants to leap about and proclaim to the skies the pure, joyful secret they share; the folly of such an instinct only makes it that much more precious. 

On September 3rd, the present situation catches up with them when two thousand Irish troops land to fortify the Protestant defenders. It is early morning when the Musketeers are on the beach, cleaning their equipment and themselves in the grey-lit water, and suddenly they appear through the scrubby grass. Only Athos has time to draw his sword, and, seeing it flash in the dawn light, the Irishmen shoot him as they advance. He falls backwards into Aramis, sends both of them tumbling into the sand. The lead bullet expands and deforms upon impact, shredding into the flesh of his left shoulder. 

Their captors waste no time in setting up a perimeter and bulkhead of watchful troops on the beach, leaving them trussed up and helpless. Porthos’s growls for attention, water for their wounded comrade, come to nothing. It is only when their leader (who speaks very bad French indeed) comes over to them and tells them they are to be used as hostages to bargain with the besiegers that Aramis trusts himself to speak. 

“He is dying,” he forces out in his scratchy English, his fingers plunged into the mass of Athos’s blood and scraps of cloth he has torn off of all of their shirts, trying to stop its flow. Athos, his hands clutched and massaged in Porthos’s big paws, is fighting so hard to stay conscious, to be useful, to make sure the frantic, hovering d’Artagnan doesn’t see him die, that Aramis just wants to put his head down to him and say _rest, mon ami, I shall save you._ “If you want anything from us at all, or anything from our Captain, you will let him be taken care of.”

The Irishmen take Athos away from them and put him on a horse – a wretched old nag of a thing stolen from a nearby farm – slip their list of demands into his trouser pocket, and whip the beast off in the direction of the French lines. The only thought they give to his wound is to tie his hands and feet to the saddle so if he passes out, he will not fall. If he could move, Aramis thinks as the swaying figure disappears over the dunes, he would throttle each of their captors with his bloody hands, then give them to Porthos to divest them of their manhoods. Or perhaps the other way around would be more satisfying. He’s sure d’Artagnan can also come up with his own contribution to their revenge. 

Treville does not negotiate, as they knew he wouldn’t, because in the grand scheme of things they are not worth it (the only one among them who might be, as Aramis well knows and believes, has already been saved). They fight their way out two days later – or, at least, they do a creditable enough job of tussling and punching and running about that they can claim not to have been rescued outright by the Red Guards (which is what really happened), because that would be one insult too far. The troop of Irishmen are driven into the waves to drown or be shot where they stand, and the foam on the beach runs red. 

At the camp, they find Treville tense and exhausted. The regal pair, it emerges, visited the stricken musketeer soon after the horse stumbled into the cluster of tents and Athos fell as if dead at the Captain’s feet. According to a lady Aramis once wooed in the royal retinue the queen had emerged from the surgery with a face contorted with shame – his heart clenches at the thought of _of course, she worried it was I, and when she saw him she was relieved_ – and the king gasped and shook when, ten minutes later, the doctor took up his knives and the screaming began. Aramis knows this part too well from his own memories: the wine which has no effect whatsoever on the agony, the hands and weight of a dozen men on splayed and shaking limbs, the lead bar between the lips to prevent any damage to the tongue from the teeth which will clamp down into the soft, impressionable metal. 

The Queen will not see him, says the same lady-in-waiting. He can only nod and return to Porthos and d’Artagnan, understanding if chafing under the lack of privacy in this melee of a war which means they cannot meet, and he cannot comfort her with his being not dead. 

When they find Athos at last he is grey with fatigue and pain, but at least he is alive, and they have cordoned off a section of the medical tent so he is alone, spared the curious glances of the rank and file, the sight of a lieutenant in the Musketeers brought so low prevented from disheartening them. d’Artagnan cannot hide his relief, and talks with Athos for a long time; when all of this is over, Aramis will reflect with pleasure on the good that they do each other. Porthos’s greeting is simpler – a clap of the hand, a kiss, received with mock disgruntlement, to the forehead – but no less sincere. Aramis, for his part, draws up a stool to sit next to the patient when they are alone, and chuckles at the sight of the ill-wrapped bandages.

“Could’ve done a better job with these,” he says, and pushes aside Athos’s crumpled shirt so he can re-tie some of the skewed bindings. “In fact, I think I will.”

“Aramis,” Athos rasps, but he is not listening.

“I’ll talk to Treville about getting you some safe transport back to Paris, can’t have you rotting away in this hellhole forever. I hear the waters at Forges can work miracles on this sort of thing – ”

“Aramis. I asked her to leave you.”

For a moment he cannot hear, nor see anything, nor feel the rough cloth of the bandages under his fingers. “You did what?”

Athos shifts slightly where he lies, moans a little at the strain it puts on his shoulder. “I asked her not to ruin you. I asked her not to put herself in danger.” He takes a deep breath, his battered chest bracing for a further assault. “I do not think she will see you again.”

Aramis feels his fists clench. “You told her to leave me.”

“I didn’t tell her to do anything,” Athos whispers. He is so weak beneath Aramis’s hands, so small. “I had to beg.”

This faint vestige of hope is not enough, and it never will be. Aramis shouts himself hoarse, shakes Athos so hard that by the time Porthos bursts into the tent and drags him away there is fresh blood dripping through the surgeon’s bandages. 

When they attend the king and queen’s departure from the camp the next morning, it is confirmed. She does not look at him. He is now denied even the sight of her eyes on his. 

He occupies himself as busily as he can in the siege for the next week. Porthos is a silent, ever-present thorn in his side, waking when he wakes, sleeping only after he sleeps.

d’Artagnan is given special dispensation to protect Athos’s carriage on its way back to the capital. Porthos leaves Aramis’s side for half an hour, for the first time, to see them off.

Aramis’s reputation as a sniper grows exponentially. From his perch in the barricades he kills, on average, two men for every daylight hour.

*

He and Porthos are on the front lines for two months, alone, before they are sent home for the winter. The ride back is long and quiet; the two of them are comfortable together even in silence, and always have been, because Aramis knows Porthos’ loyalty knows no bounds, and he is sure Porthos understands his sorrow even if he doesn’t approve of its cause. He has spent many weeks considering how he shall extricate himself from Athos and still maintain his place in the Musketeers, but no failsafe solutions have presented themselves.

It is resentment he feels, more than anger. Resentment that, as ever, it is Athos whose judgment and ingrained influence over others holds sway even with a monarch. That his counsel should be accepted over the fact of Aramis’s love. And even beyond this, though the thought disgusts him, he wonders whether Athos took advantage of the Queen at a time when she was weak, worried for Aramis and shocked by the sight of a musketeer bleeding to death before her very eyes. Every time this thought occurs to him, he tells himself that Athos would not do such a thing. It is Athos; he was dying; he wanted to protect his friend should he not live through the surgery. 

But he still thinks of it, every day and night.

On one of the few occasions as they ride that he broaches the subject with Porthos, desperate for advice, he gets little more than a mild glare in return.

“You think he doesn’t care, really? You think he doesn’t understand what it is to lose a woman?”

And that just makes everything more difficult. 

With the Captain still at La Rochelle Athos has been installed at Treville’s desk as his wound heals, and it is there that they find him, staring at the stacks of ever-increasing paperwork through his overgrown hair with something approaching murder in his eyes. His back moves stiffly as he rises to greet them, but color has returned to his face and meat to his bones, and Aramis cannot repress a pang of quiet joy at the sight of him. 

“You made it back faster than I expected,” Athos says, warmly, his throat slightly raspy from lack of wine. He embraces Porthos, and then steps towards Aramis. “Will you stay?” he asks, quietly.

Something inside Aramis cracks.

“I never would have hurt her,” he stammers.

“I know.”

“I thought – I would have been careful, I would have done anything – ”

“I know,” Athos says again, and takes hold of Aramis’s forearms, steers him towards a chair which he is ashamed to feel himself fall into. Porthos puts a cup of wine into his shaking hands. He can sense the presence of death, his own, and how close he has come to it in these past months, in so many ways. The epiphany leaves him breathless. Athos kneels next to him, carefully, tense pain still written into the lines of his shoulders.

“She trusted me," Aramis sighs, and in that moment he feels the anger of the betrayed leave him. There it is, in the open, that one, silly fact: a queen trusted her life and reputation to a man who could not keep them safe.

“Who would not?” Athos murmurs.

Later, at Athos’ apartement, Aramis will help to undress him, remove the coat and shirt from the stiff arm, examine the progress of the deep bruises and the angry pucker of the bullet wound. It will be another few months before his lieutenant is able to wield his sword with the same breathtaking skill as before. 

Until then Aramis, trusted and loved, is happy to help with the bandages. 

**FIN**

**Author's Note:**

> Historical notes: the show is set in 1630, while the Siege of La Rochelle, which plays a major part in Dumas's novel, occurred from September 1627 - October 1628. All's fair in fiction, right? Ish? Some of my information on battlefield treatment in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was taken from _Wars of the Age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715_ by Cathal J. Nolan.


End file.
